Non-null objects, the Null Object pattern, and T.init

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang at gmail.com>]

On Sunday, 19 January 2014 at 19:55:34 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 1/19/2014 4:20 AM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" 
> <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang at gmail.com>" wrote:
>> If you take a theoretical position (which I think you do)
>
> Please set such statements against my assertion that Boeing 
> follows the principles I outlined in practice, and very 
> successfully.

Would they even consider using D? Are you referring to a niche 
for which D is not suited? In most situations you cannot afford 
to develop a program to the point where it is 100% bug free, let 
alone develop 2 independent versions of the spec to 100% bug 
free. This is a very narrow niche.

And it isn't even relevant, because crash-and-burn-on-null is 
still an option with voluntary recovery mechanisms.

And as I pointed out, you wouldn't use zero as a null value if 
safety and debugging is your prime concern. You would use a more 
"secure" bitpattern (i.e. harder to arrive at by accident), and 
you would differentiate "null" from "undefined"?